The Adamas Blueprint

CHAPTER 7

After shaving and changing into more presentable clothes, Kevin tried calling Erica again. Busy. He laid the receiver in the cradle, put his slippers back on, and walked back to the living room, plopping himself on the couch. Headline News was into the next half hour, but he switched it to the local channel to see if he could find out anything about this Stein. Damn, he wished he got the paper.

Kevin was still confused by the events of the last two hours, and he played them over in his mind to see if any of it made sense, to try to put it together into some rational explanation. No. First, he needed to start with the facts. One, his professor and the professor’s wife were dead, supposedly from a house fire. Two, he received e-mail from Dr. Ward claiming-wait, change that-from Dr. Ward’s e-mail address claiming that someone was trying to kill him, and that same someone had already killed a man named Herbert Stein. Not only that, but they wanted to kill him for an experiment that was a failure, and one of these people was named Clay. Three, Herbert Stein, a person he had never heard of until today, was murdered.

Which left him with what? He looked at the printout again. He wished he could believe that this was all an elaborate hoax, that somebody owed him for a joke he had pulled at one time, but he was too much of a realist to believe it. Even the nerds in his chemistry department wouldn’t stoop to something like this.

That left a high probability that the message really was from Dr. Ward. Three dead people. Maybe all of them murdered. He was glad he had called the police.

A sharp knock on the door startled him, and Kevin accidentally tore the printout in half. He stuffed the pieces of paper into his pocket as he rose and walked over to the front door.

Normally, during the day he would just open the door, although at night he always checked who it was first. Today was not normal. He looked through the foggy peephole and could make out two men in suits. He recognized neither of them.

“Who is it?” he said loudly.

“Detectives Barnett and Kaplan,” a well-spoken voice said. “Guy Robley radioed us and asked us to stop by since we were in the neighborhood. He said he couldn’t get to the phone right now to call you. If you’ll crack the door, you can see our identification.”

At the mention of Detective Robley’s name, Kevin calmed. Even so, he kept the chain on and gave the IDs presented a thorough inspection. They seemed all right to him, not that he’d know what fake badges looked like. Satisfied, he removed the chain and asked the officers to come in.

“Man, am I glad you’re here.” The officer named Barnett looked to be in his late thirties and was neatly dressed in a gray suit and paisley tie. He looked more like a businessman than a cop. His matching gray eyes examined Kevin thoroughly, but he gave Kevin a friendly smile. The other officer, Kaplan, was younger and more rumpled in his navy suit. Both were shorter than Kevin by about four inches. “You guys must be hot. Can I get you something to drink?”

Barnett glanced at Kaplan and then shook his head. “No, thank you. We just had a late breakfast, and I think we drank a pot of coffee between us.” As they sat down in the living room, his smile changed to a concerned frown. “We are working on the Stein case with Guy. He said you called with some information concerning Mr. Stein.”

“Actually, I was calling about a professor, Dr. Michael Ward.”

“The professor from STU who died in the fire last night?” Barnett said.

“Yes, I go to STU. I worked with him for year and a half until last May.”

Barnett concerned expression deepened. “This must be difficult for you. I’m sorry. Please, go on.”

“I wasn’t very close to Dr. Ward. I just worked for him.” Kevin told them everything that had happened to him since he woke up. During the story, Barnett asked a few questions for clarification, but Kaplan just scribbled on a notepad and said nothing. When Kevin got to the part about the message from Ward, Barnett stopped him.

“Do you know what the message means? This could be very important in our investigation into Mr. Stein’s death.”

“No, I don’t. Maybe if Dr. Ward had been able to finish it, I would have understood. The last sentence was cut off, as if he’d stopped typing abruptly.”

“Could I see this e-mail message?” said Barnett.

“Sure,” Kevin said, “I can even give you a copy.” He went to the Mac and typed the commands to print them a fresh copy instead of giving them the torn one in his pocket. “Do you really think it’s from Dr. Ward?”

“As you said yourself, this could have been typed by anyone and merely sent from his account. But I don’t think we can rule out the possibility.”

Kevin gave them the note. Both officers read it intently.

For the first time, Kaplan spoke. His voice was surprisingly high for his size. “What is NV117?”

“It was an experiment we were conducting right before I stopped working with Dr. Ward. It was research I was conducting for the Department of Energy, fairly harmless stuff.”

“Why would someone be interested in research in superconductivity?” Kaplan said.

Kevin gave Kaplan a puzzled look. “I have no idea. How did you…”

Barnett interrupted. “Do you know what the code means?”

Kevin shrugged as he completed the commands to print the message. “I keep thinking I’ve seen it before, but nothing comes to mind. Like I said, the message wasn’t finished.”

Kevin turned back toward Barnett, and for a split second, caught Barnett glaring at Kaplan. The look vanished quickly and smoothly, as if Kevin wasn’t meant to see it.

“Did you know Herbert Stein?” asked Barnett.

“Never heard of him before. Who was he?” Kevin plucked the note from the printer and handed it to Barnett. “Some drug dealer?” The drug wave had hit Houston as hard as any city.

“Well,” Barnett said, “of course, you understand that I can’t reveal everything we know about the case, but I can tell you that he was a respectable attorney with a small practice in the Village. And no, drugs don’t seem to be involved.”

“A lawyer, huh? Was Dr. Ward a client of his?”

“I don’t recall that name from his records,” Kaplan said.

“I don’t either,” Barnett said. “We’ll check that out later. Have you seen a photo of Mr. Stein?”

“No. I’ve been watching the news off and on, but I haven’t seen the story. I didn’t even know he was a real person until I talked to Detective Chambers.”

“Mr. Hamilton,” Barnett said, “I wonder if we could ask you to come down to the station and look at a picture of Mr. Stein.”

“Why?”

“If he and Dr. Ward had some clandestine meetings-say at the university? — a student such as yourself may have seen him. We also have some photos of other suspects. They may have been intermediaries between Mr. Stein and Dr. Ward, and we’d like you to take a look at them.”

Kevin nodded. “I thought you might want me to do something like this. Sure. I’ll do it.” He looked down at his slippers. “I have to put my shoes on.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Hamilton,” Barnett said. “Go right ahead. We’ll just wait out here.”

Kevin ducked into the bedroom. His eyes felt better, so he took his glasses off and put his contact lenses back in. Just then the phone rang. He picked it up and started putting on his tennis shoes.

“Hello.”

“It’s me,” Erica said.

“There you are. I tried calling you four or five times.”

“Somebody called right after you hung up, and I couldn’t get him off the phone.”

“Never mind that. You are never going to believe what’s going on. There really is a Stein. Herbert Stein. Actually, I should say there was. He was murdered two days ago.” Erica gasped. “Now the cops are here, and they want me to go down to the station with them.”

“To look at a lineup?”

“No, just some pictures. It shouldn’t take too long.”

The sound of a gas motor steadily grew as a man on a lawnmower neared Kevin’s apartment. He raised his voice.

“You still interested in lunch?”

There was a pause on the other end. “All right, but no McDonald’s.”

A click in the phone interrupted Erica’s voice. He could barely make out the tell-tale beeping of the call waiting signal over the din of the lawnmower. “That’s another call. Can you hang on?”

“Yes.”

Kevin depressed the switch.

“Hello?” He was practically yelling over the sound of the lawnmower.

“Mr. Hamilton, this is Detective Guy Robley of the HPD Homicide Division. Detective Chambers said you called about Herbert Stein.”

“Yes. Barnett and Kaplan are here. They explained about you not being able to get back to me.”

“Who?”

Kevin frowned. “Detectives Barnett and Kaplan. They said you asked them to stop by my apartment. I was just about to leave with them to come down to the station.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Hamilton? I didn’t send anyone to your apartment.”

Kevin looked at the closed bedroom door. “There must be some misunderstanding. Their names are Detectives Barnett and Kaplan.”

“Look, Mr. Hamilton” Robley said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I don’t know anyone by the name of Barnett or Kaplan.”

Lobec leaned against the wall by the bedroom door. He had moved over there to hear the phone conversation, but the noise of the lawnmower was drowning out Kevin’s voice. No matter. He had heard most of the conversation he had had with his girlfriend, and it didn’t sound as if he had told her anything of importance. Besides, her home was going to be their next stop. So much easier to make their deaths appear as an accident.

He couldn’t hear Kevin hang up the phone, but his voice called from the bedroom.

“I just have to go to the bathroom, and then I’ll be ready to go.”

Lobec heard a door shut. After waiting a minute, he peered into the bedroom. Seeing that it was clear, he walked in. The obese man with the lawnmower turned his machine off. Lobec listened at the door of the bathroom. The fan was on. He heard nothing.

He waited a few seconds. Still nothing.

He knocked on the door and asked if everything was all right. No response. He drew his pistol and tried the knob. Locked. He hit the flimsy door with his shoulder and rushed into the bathroom.

It took him only a second to scan the tiny room. Before his eyes reached it, he could feel the heat flowing through an open window, large enough for a man to fit through easily. He looked through. Hamilton’s car was still in the lot, but the student was nowhere to be seen.

“Something must have tipped him,” Bern said. “He didn’t take the car?”

Lobec turned and saw Bern looking through the window, his pistol already drawn. He slapped Bern’s right cheek, leaving an angry red mark.

“You fool. Of course he was tipped off. You did it by mentioning the word superconductivity before he told it to us.”

“I heard him say superconductivity.”

“He said he was conducting an experiment. He made no mention of the word ‘superconductivity.’”

“But I…”

“This is not a debate. His keys are in the kitchen and his wallet is on the coffee table. Get them in case he decides to come back. He must be in the apartment complex.”

Lobec heard talking coming from the bedroom. He and Bern rushed out of the bathroom to find Hamilton’s greeting playing on the answering machine. When the machine beeped and started recording, Lobec recognized the voice. The girl named Erica.

“Kevin? Kevin, are you there? It’s Erica. We got cut off. Kevin? If you’ve left for the police station, let me know when you get back.” After a few more seconds calling his name, she hung up.

Bern looked at Lobec. “What do we do now? Same plan? Interrogation?”

Lobec gave Bern a cold stare, twisting the silencer onto his pistol. “No. Hamilton obviously didn’t know what the code meant. Therefore, he is of no further use to us. When you find him, kill him.”